In order to provide efficient use of resources and improved reliability, networks are often configured with logical or virtual servers rather than a single entity server. For example, enterprise networks often use a logical server to represent multiple physical devices. Also, many network managers are turning to virtualization so that resources can be shared across a network. Through the use of virtualization, multiple operating systems and applications can run on the same computer at the same time, thereby increasing utilization and flexibility of hardware. Virtualization allows servers to be decoupled from underlying hardware, thus resulting in multiple virtual servers sharing the same physical server hardware. This also allows the virtual server to be moved from one physical server to another physical server.
A secure communication session is often required between a client and the server. In conventional networks, the secure communication session cannot be moved between physical servers without closing an existing communication session and opening a new session. Another drawback with conventional systems is the difficulty in monitoring traffic over the secure communication session.
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